In the spirit of Dan Roam's book, The Back of the Napkin, which Guy Kawasaki and I have been tweeting about today, I decided to see if I could put into pictures what I've been describing in this blog. Turns out, it's pretty fast and I had more fun with markers than I've had since I was little! So here's my first attempt (thanks Dan and Guy!):
Fashion Cycles
Fashion cycles can be long (for classics) or quite short (for fads). Most items that are introduced into the fashion world barely register as a blip. If an "opinion leader" picks up the look and it gains a steady following, a trend is born. It becomes a classic if it sticks around for a while without losing followers. If it never gains substantial momentum, we see a fad. (Yes, that is my Anna Wintour stick figure for the Opinion Leader.)
Fashion Diffusion
Throughout the history of fashion, different Opinion Leaders have prevailed and the means of transmitting popular trends throughout culture have shifted accordingly.
Those trends that do register now have more followers worldwide than ever before, and that is due to the system of fashion diffusion. This mass following makes it difficult for the fashion system to keep up, when it has to both churn out new looks every 4-6 months and produce enough items to supply a global market.
The every-increasing speed of fashion diffusion has led some to question the future of the industry, and to question whether or not high-end fashion can be considered a part of the luxury industry today (as luxury is typically defined as something unique).
It has reached a period where fashion moves so fast that it is detrimental to the fashion business - people not buying because they know in five minutes they're not going to like it any more, because it won't be new... It's too fast. Either it'll keep on getting faster, or we'll get fed up and stop buying. ~ Tom Ford in Pop Magazine, SS 2002
What Now?
We have to up our game and evolve the fashion business model again. New systems of diffusion have been transforming the fashion industry since its birth, and the digital revolution is no different.
I think this is actually a great opportunity to bring fashion back into an art form by using digital communications to bridge the gap that now exists between the designer and the consumer and by using the medium to demonstrate the more creative processes of the design houses, which are limited on the sales floor by mass market constraints. We've got a long way to go...